What Is 78 Tarot? The Story of a Global Art Collaboration

78 Tarot began with a simple, audacious idea: what if instead of one artist illustrating all 78 cards in a tarot deck, you asked 78 different artists — one for each card?

The answer, it turns out, is extraordinary.

Founded by Kayti Welsh in 2014, the project grew from a small Kickstarter campaign into one of the most recognized collaborative tarot projects in the world. Each deck follows the same fundamental concept: a theme is chosen, a global call for artists goes out, and 78 creators — working independently but within a shared vision — each bring one card to life in their own unique style.

The result is something no solo artist could create: a deck that contains multitudes. Every reading draws from 78 distinct imaginations, 78 cultural perspectives, 78 artistic vocabularies. The Death card may be rendered in watercolor; the Fool may arrive in digital art; the Ace of Cups may be sculpted in clay. The diversity is not a bug — it is the entire point.

What makes 78 Tarot special is not just the art, though the art is extraordinary. It is the human collaboration behind it. Real artists, living real lives, pouring their genuine perspective into a shared work. When you lay out a spread from a 78 Tarot deck, you are drawing on the collected wisdom, creativity, and humanity of dozens of people who cared deeply about their card.

That is what a tarot reading is supposed to be.